From Greensboro Assistant City Attorney Tom Carruthers’ draft amendment upping the city’s ticket tax to help pay for the proposed downtown performing arts center:
The proposed revision would allow the City to assess a fee up to $3.00 per ticket for any City owned facility that seats more than 2,750 seats and less than 4,000 seats. This terminology was utilized to avoid including other City owned facilities in this expansion of the City’s levy authority. The War Memorial Auditorium seats 2,460; The Greensboro Aquatic Center seats 2,500; the Special Events Center seats 5,000; the White Oak Amphitheater seats 7,000 and the War Memorial Baseball Stadium seats 7,000.
Like they’re ever going to get 7,000 people inside War Memorial Stadium. Help me out here — maybe I don’t know the city in which I’ve lived for 25 years as well as I thought— but what other city-owned facilities would earn enough ticket revenue to build a performing arts center?